Lionsgate Publishing has just release a collection of various action-packed scores from composers such as Brian Tyler, Mark Isham, Aaron Zigman and Marco Beltrami. All that's required is a valid email address to download.

➔ 28 Cues to Die For

The modern-day composer often has to write in a variety of styles, from world traditions to electronic, from glorious harmony to, well, glorious atonality. Like many have said, composers have to be chameleons, putting on a variety of masks to cater to the situation at hand. Film composers have had to figure out how to write for metallic art sculptures, cactuses, vegetables and pens; how to perfectly mimic music from other ethnicities while remaining relevant to the score; how to incorporate popular music elements without sounding clichéd; and above all, developing a unique sound for each film while simultaneously placing their sonic 'stamp' on each to maintain their own voice.

This is something I've had to come to grips with: learning how to orchestrate and create suave, diatonic melodies is not the final step in the journey to being a successful composer. Not by a longshot. As a film composer, this covers probably less than half of your total output. The rest entails such things as atonal, aleatoric, and sound effect or synthscape music, music for various ethnicities or time periods, as well as smaller instrumental groups, and writing for nonstandard instruments. Ugh, the very word atonal gives me shivers. But, it's just another area that needs to be researched and mastered. Like anything worth doing, it takes time and effort.

Below is a collection of snippets where the composers diverged drastically from their pre-established sound.

Once again, Newman proves that he can't be stereotyped into the folk song genre, effortlessly switching between traditional orchestra and rock ensemble.

While there is no style-switching within this clip, this track alone stands out as the furthest deviation on the album as a whole. In this case, it's questionable how much of this cue Arnold actually composed; as a piano player, he could have written the head and performed on it. It's possible that to get that characteristic Southern flair, he relied more on the ensemble's sound than on his compositional choicies (most of it was improvised). Nevertheless, Arnold obviously did his research in creating this piece.

"Akator" follows the above example almost as precisely, although more of it is dependent on the actual written score than the performer's experience. Given that the transition happens mid-cue, the effect is all the more striking.

In all the above examples, the composers all started from an orchestral sound, then moved into their other style. Here, it happens in the reverse order: synth artist BT starts with the electronic version of the theme, then incorporates the orchestra. But in this case, the effect isn't nearly as captivating: by already using a blend of acoustic and electronic sounds (likely all software-generated), when the brass comes in, it sounds sampled, too! The effect of the transition could've been made more effective by engineering a more dramatic shift in timbre, rather than just layering the horns on top of an already pseudo-acoustic sounding mix.

Horner's career has been one of the most vibrant and diverse in terms of musical styles. The entire Zorro score stands out as a departure from Horner's more standard stuff, if you can call it that. This cue, the first of the album, features an ensemble of tap dancers, and a trio of flamenco guitarists, interspersed with elements of the more traditional orchestra.

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in all, these moments of departure are among the most interesting to listen to from the composers. It's a real skill to be able to take one's musical style and plug it into a variety of different outlets. This is certainly one ability common to the great composers of history.

How much of a piece should be pre-planned before you start writing it? I've come across a few ways of doing it:

Being one of the many Up fans who actively eats up any promotional material Pixar releases, I've of course watched the clip labelled 'Tepui Landing'. And of course, I was trying to pay attention to Giacchino's music when it came in.

When the fog clears, we're presented with a vista which—in high-definition 3D theatres—should be nothing short of magnificent. What seemed odd about this 1930s, Hermannesque-type music was how small it seemed in comparison with the huge vista being shown onscreen. The ensemble can't be more than about 30 people (about a third the size of a modern studio orchestra) and the sense of depth is practically zero with the lack of reverb. (Listen to some Zbigniew Preisner to hear an example of very 'wet' reverb.) What's going on here, Giacchino? Surely you know better than this?

He does. In a video interview on Trailer Addict, Giacchino stated that his intent with the score for Up was to present music that the protagonist, Carl, would have listened to throughout his lifetime. Brilliant! Giacchino has chosen a musical 'lens' with which to frame his subject matter, in this case, the vista. And now it makes sense: the music for this scene is only a small sample from the palette that Giacchino is drawing on to paint a deeper picture of the main character. Throughout the rest of the movie, we'll hear some swing, some Golden Age… maybe even some rock and roll if Carl is so inclined!

While it may seem counter-intuitive to this scene, if the rest of the music functions as he's described, then it will succeed as an integrated, yet diverse musical work that enhances the story. All that's left is to see if it plays out—I know that I for one am going to enjoy this moment.

Sources:

• Watch the scene 'Tepui Landing' from Up
• See the interview with Michael Giacchino

So, as if World of Goo's creator releasing the soundtrack for free wasn't good enough, now we have Sebastian Wolff to thank for creating a full piano arrangement for nearly every track! Yay free stuff!

        In my lesson on Wednesday, I felt like I was given a taste of what the life of a professional composer is like. The question I asked went something like, "What do you do when you hit a wall? Shouldn't you just go work on something else and try it again later?" NO was the swift reply. You sit there and think about it, for hours, days… however long it takes. My teacher argues that one should only work on one piece of music at a time, to allow for the maximum range of expression to be channelled into the work.

        In complete opposition to this, when I get stuck, I usually just flip to something I know I can do quickly, such as another easier piece, reading news, or an escape to various forms of entertainment. NO. A composer's mind should never be turned off. Even when you're doing other things, always keep that burning question in the back of your head. This way, your conscious attention is turned towards something else, leaving your subconscious (that part that artists love) free to work on the problem at its own pace.

        As I was told, when Wagner got stuck on something, he would go and write fugues. Like every day. While this seems daunting to a student such as myself, it's important to realize that this was his way to 'escape' while not turning off the music part of his brain, which is such an easy thing to do. Then when the answer came, it was POW and back to work, macho man. This stuck with me, and now when I feel myself gravitating towards mindless escapes (which do happen a lot, yay Tetris) I'm looking for new ways to incorporate this musical thinking.

Fellow U of T second-year composer extraordinaire Mike Romaniak just posted a video of his work Sfumato from the last Composer's Concert. It's performed by Kishan Chouhan, Brenton Chan, and Wesley Shen. Check it out!

Mike Romaniak—Sfumato

        Being a fledgling composer, I sometimes feel overwhelmed and inept by my inability to understand contemporary music. By 'contemporary music', I mean pieces that are hard to understand, are 'way out there' in some form or another, and generally require a lot of training and prep work to actually find something meaningful in any of them. I am constantly perplexed as to why composers would take perfectly good ideas and then write behind this 'veil' of unnecessary complication.

        Is it worth the effort in understanding the piece? Do I even care? Even by just asking these questions, I feel that I'm neglecting something important.